When St. Paul native Seth Numrich first appears in AMC’s new Revolutionary War spy-thriller “Turn,” he’s running for his life from soldiers who sided with the British. It’s an intense moment in a show filled with nerve-wracking scenes.

On a recent break from filming on location in Richmond, Va., the 27-year-old accomplished stage actor is thoughtful and a bit humble while talking about his career.

He doesn’t brag about being the youngest drama student ever accepted to Juilliard, New York’s famed performing arts conservatory, at age 16 or about his starring role in the Tony Award-winning “War Horse.”

And there’s no mention of the Outstanding Newcomer honor he received last fall at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards in London for his role in Tennessee Williams’ “Sweet Bird of Youth.”

Now, he’s excited about starring in “Turn” and trying to get TV watchers hooked on a period of American history they might not have thought much about since high school.

Numrich plays Ben Tallmadge, a soldier in Gen. George Washington’s Continental Army and the leader of the Culper Ring of spies.

“I’ll be the first to admit it’s not an area of history I had a lot of expertise in,” Numrich said. “I feel like in this country we have this baseline education about what the Revolutionary War was and what happened. We learn the dates and some of the battles — we all know how it ends, right? But what I was fascinated to learn was the specifics and all the complexities. The things I took for granted.”

The new series explores the origins of American espionage and is based on historian Alexander Rose’s book “Washington Spies.”

“Turn” tells the story of America’s first spy ring, focusing on farmer Abe Woodhull (Jamie Bell) who reluctantly joins his friend, Numrich’s Tallmadge, to spy on the Brits.

“When I started researching the part, I realized not everybody in the country was behind this idea — most people actually wanted to stay under the British rule,” Numrich said. “They were happy with the way things were. It was interesting to see how torn the country was at the time. In a lot of ways, it was more like a divorce than it was like a war.”

Craig Silverstein, “Turn’s” executive producer, said he was drawn to the show because its story was so different from other TV projects he has done.

“We hear a lot about our Founding Fathers and these great famous generals, but we don’t really ever hear about the farmer on the ground,” Silverstein said. “Seth’s character is a small-town boy. These were ordinary people, and they did extraordinary things.”

When it came to casting Ben Tallmadge, Silverstein said Numrich stood out.

“He was always a little charmer,” said his mother, Ann Griggs, a nurse practitioner. “He liked to get dressed up from a very young age. When he was 3, he had a three-piece suit with a clip-on tie he liked to wear. We didn’t know if he was going to be an actor or an investment banker.”

But acting was in his blood. His father, Charles Numrich, is a Twin Cities actor and storyteller. Along with his older brother, Ian Griggs, Numrich was home-schooled and introduced to an abundance of arts, music and literature as he was growing up.

“We gave them a lot of freedom to explore and figure out what they wanted to learn and to find ways in which they could use their creativity as part of the learning process,” Charles Numrich said. “Our role was to encourage them and help them find outlets.”

Acting was one of the outlets for Numrich.

At 10, he joined the home-school theater company Theatrix and went on to do shows with theater groups around town, including the Youth Performance Company, Park Square, the History Theatre and the Guthrie Theater.

Jacie Knight, artist director/founder of Youth Performance Company, started working with Numrich when he was 11. She remembers that his work ethic and passion were “evident right out of the gate.”

When the YPC put on “Just Before Sleep,” directed by a Hamline University student, Knight remembers the student’s professors attending one of the performances to grade her work.

“Pretty much across the board, their first comment was, ‘Who is that kid, Seth? He’s amazing,’ ” Knight said.

At 12, Numrich had a part in Tennessee Williams’ “Summer and Smoke” at the Guthrie. It was a turning point.

“I was this little kid, and it was just one scene in the play, but I looked around and realized all of these people made their living as actors getting up on stage every night,” Numrich said. “Once I realized that was a job possibility, I was sold.”

It was also during “Summer and Smoke” that his father remembers thinking, “Yep, he’s really good.”

That wasn’t just a parent’s bias. Four years later, Juilliard offered Numrich a spot in its drama program.

“He wanted to go, so we said, ‘Let’s make this happen,’ ” said Charles Numrich. “It was a realization that if the Juilliard School looked at him and recognized there was something they valued and they could work with, that’s something he should go and try.”

BROADWAY AND LONDON

In 2010, Numrich made his Broadway debut as Al Pacino’s son-in-law in “The Merchant of Venice.” He later snagged the lead in the award-winning “War Horse.” Various theater projects followed, including last year’s award-winning breakout role in “Sweet Bird of Youth” with Kim Cattrall (of “Sex and the City” fame) at London’s Old Vic Theatre.

“I walked into his dressing room at the Old Vic,” Charles Numrich recalled. “On one wall is a picture of Sir Lawrence Olivier and on the other is a picture of Sir Richard Burton. OK, no pressure here.”

Even with the high-profile theater roles, the awards and now a TV show, Seth Numrich has not forgotten his roots. When he comes home, he visits with theater folks he worked with years ago. In 2011, he co-hosted the Twin Cities theater Ivey Awards with his father.

Ron Peluso, artistic director of the History Theatre, worked with Numrich on a couple of productions, including “Orphan Train.” A few years ago, Peluso ran into the actor at the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, where Numrich told him he was trying to make it as an actor in New York.

“The next week, I read in the New York Times he’s the lead in ‘War Horse,’ ” Peluso said. “It’s like, are you kidding me? He didn’t tell me that. He was being Minnesota modest.”

At this point, “Turn’s” future is unknown beyond its 10-episode run. But there’s a trip home to see his dad in “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” at Theater in the Round and then back to London for a new stage role he can’t yet reveal.

Asked if he would ever like to do another show at the Guthrie, Numrich quickly replied, “I’d love to.”

“I’ve seen some stuff at the new space, and it’s beautiful,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of friends who’ve been there the last few years performing in all three spaces. It’s something I’d really love to do. I’ve always been so inspired by the theater community in the Twin Cities.”

As you comment, please be respectful of other commenters and other viewpoints. Our goal with article comments is to provide a space for civil, informative and constructive conversations. We reserve the right to remove any comment we deem to be defamatory, rude, insulting to others, hateful, off-topic or reckless to the community. See our full terms of use here.

More in News

Helmets in hand, members of the St. Paul Bicycle Coalition arrived at St. Paul City Hall on Wednesday half expecting an easy victory. A plan to install bicycle lanes on little more than a half-mile of Stillwater Avenue, a busy east-west commuter route east of White Bear Avenue on St. Paul’s East Side, drew multiple supporters and a single opponent, who...

Sol Sepulveda, 64, has been singing since she was a little girl. But until Monday, she had never sung in public. She said she’d been scared to, since her father had insisted on her keeping quiet as a child. Sepulveda, a resident at Ebenezer Senior Care’s Minneapolis campus, was a participant of a theater workshop offered by St. Paul’s Teatro...

The drive-through jokes are starting to get a little old at Mama’s Pizza. For the second time in two years, the renowned Rice Street restaurant in St. Paul’s North End was struck by an errant driver, and this time there was a fair amount of damage. Still, owner Tony Mudzinski said he hopes to get back open in a week...

South Washington County Schools apologized and launched an investigation Thursday after personal and transportation data on most of the district’s 18,000-plus students was mistakenly emailed to parents. District administrators were starting to investigate the data release amid concerns about student safety and legal implications that could stem from the public release of private education data. The private data was contained...

Police say a 63-year-old maintenance worker died when he fell to the bottom of a hotel elevator shaft in Superior, Wis. The accident happened Tuesday evening at the Androy Hotel, authorities said. Hotel staff and other witnesses told police and medical staff that the elevator had been malfunctioning, and that the night maintenance worker was trying to fix it. He...